Main navigation

Partners in Crime Tours

At she was just thirteen years old, Charlie Quinn’s childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men with a grudge against her lawyer father broke into her home. After the tragically horrifying events of that night, Charlie’s world was forever altered.

Having followed in her father’s footsteps, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to. So when Flora Faulkner, a motherless teenager being raised by her maternal grandparents, begs for help, Charlie’s past renders her powerless to refuse.

But Charlie soon realizes that Flora, an honor student and Girl Scout, is in far deeper trouble than Charlie could ever have anticipated. Charlie finds herself at a crossroads: Can she believe everything Flora is telling her? How far should she and, from an ethical perspective, must she go to protect her client?

Protecting someone always comes at a cost.

Review:

Author Karen SlaughterKarin Slaughter never disappoints. She always delivers tautly constructed mysteries featuring multi-layered, intriguing, and empathetic characters — and jaw-dropping plot twists. Last Breath, the novella prequel to The Good Daughter, is no exception.

Readers are introduced to Charlotte “Charlie” Quinn. After graduating from a respected law school, Charlie returned to her home town to practice criminal defense alongside her father, Rusty. Charlie could have accepted a position with a large law firm that would have enabled her to pay off her student loans and enjoy a secure future catering to wealthy clients. Instead, Charlie and her husband, Ben, a deputy district attorney, struggle to make ends meet. Charlie’s clients frequently do not pay her fees or she works pro bono because of her compulsion to help those who need it most, but are least able to afford it.

Enter Flora, a wide-eyed, seemingly innocent Girl Scout who is so adept at selling that she has sold more cookies than the other girls in her troop. Like Charlie, Flora lost her mother at a very young age. Charlie is convinced that, like her own mother, Flora’s mother loved her daughter until her very last breath and would want only the best for her girl. Moreover, when they meet, Charlie is not at her physical best and particularly vulnerable to being swayed by the emotional connection she and Flora immediately establish because of their shared life experiences. Convinced that Flora’s future is in jeopardy, Charlie is determined to help her. As she investigates Flora’s circumstances, Charlie discovers that Flora may also be in grave danger.

Slaughter’s short story is fast-paced and gripping. She deftly injects details about Charlie’s past, family members, and characteristics that serve as a foundation for the deeper exploration that unfolds in The Good Daughter. Slaughter also provides readers insight into the dynamics of Charlie’s relationship with Ben.

But it is actually Flora who is the centerpiece of this tale as the action quickly accelerates ad the breath-taking truth is revealed, leaving Charlie, who is ethically bound to maintain client confidentiality, struggling to comply with her professional obligations while doing what is morally right. And, in the aftermath, questioning whether she made the right choice.

Excerpt from Last Breath

Chapter One

“Come on now, Miss Charlie.” Dexter Black’s voice was scratchy over the jailhouse payphone. He was fifteen years her senior, but the “miss” was meant to convey respect for their respective positions. “I told you I’m’a take care of your bill soon as you get me outta this mess.”

Charlie Quinn rolled her eyes up so far in her head that she felt dizzy. She was standing outside a packed room of Girl Scouts at the YWCA. She should not have taken the call, but there were few worse things than being surrounded by a gaggle of teenage girls. “Dexter, you said the exact same thing the last time I got you out of trouble, and the minute you walked out of rehab, you spent all of your money on lottery tickets.”

“I could’a won, and then I would’a paid you out half. Not just what I owe you, Miss Charlie. Half.”

“That’s very generous, but half of nothing is nothing.” She waited for him to come up with another excuse, but all she heard was the distinct murmur of the North Georgia Men’s Detention Center. Bars being rattled. Expletives being shouted. Grown men crying. Guards telling them all to shut the hell up.

“I hope it’s not anything you wouldn’t want the police to find out about on a recorded phone conversation from jail.” Charlie wiped sweat from her forehead. The hallway was like an oven. “Dexter, you owe me almost two thousand dollars. I can’t be your lawyer for free. I’ve got a mortgage and school loans and I’d like to be able to eat at a nice restaurant occasionally without worrying my credit card will be declined.”

“Miss Charlie,” Dexter repeated. “I see what you were doing there, reminding me about the phone being recorded, but what I’m saying is that I got something might be worth some money to the police.”

“You should get a good lawyer to represent you in the negotiations, because it’s not going to be me.”

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up,” Dexter pleaded. “I’m just remembering what you told me all them years ago when we first started. You remember that?”

Charlie’s eye roll was not as pronounced this time. Dexter had been her first client when she’d set up shop straight out of law school.

He said, “You told me that you passed up them big jobs in the city ’cause you wanted to help people.” He paused for effect. “Don’t you still wanna help people, Miss Charlie?”

She mumbled a few curses that the phone monitors at the jail would appreciate. “Carter Grail,” she said, offering him the name of another lawyer.

“Don’t sign anything that you don’t understand.” Charlie flipped her phone closed and dropped it into her purse. A group of women in bike shorts walked past. The YWCA mid-morning crowd consisted of retirees and young mothers. She could hear a distant thump-thump-thump of heavy bass from an exercise class. The air smelled of chlorine from the indoor pool. Thunks from the tennis courts penetrated the double-paned windows.

Charlie leaned back against the wall. She replayed Dexter’s call in her head. He was in jail again. For meth again. He was probably thinking he could snitch on a fellow meth head, or a dealer, and make the charges go away. If he didn’t have a lawyer looking over the deal from the district attorney’s office, he would be better off holding his nuts and buying more lottery tickets.

She felt bad about his situation, but not as bad as she felt about the prospect of being late on her car payment.

The door to the rec room opened. Belinda Foster looked panicked. She was twenty-eight, the same age as Charlie, but with a toddler at home, a baby on the way and a husband she talked about as if he was another burdensome child. Taking over Girl Scout career day had not been Belinda’s stupidest mistake this summer, but it was in the top three.

“Charlie!” Belinda tugged at the trefoil scarf around her neck. “If you don’t get back in here, I’m gonna throw myself off the roof.”

“You’d only break your neck.”

Belinda pulled open the door and waited.

Charlie nudged around her friend’s very pregnant belly. Nothing had changed in the rec room since her ringing cell phone had given her respite from the crowd. All of the oxygen was being sucked up by twenty fresh-faced, giggling Girl Scouts ranging from the ages of fifteen to eighteen. Charlie tried not to shudder at the sight of them. She had a tiny smidge over a decade on most of the girls, but there was something familiar about each and every one of them.

The math nerds. The future English majors. The cheerleaders. The Plastics. The goths. The dorks. The freaks. The geeks. They all flashed the same smiles at each other, the kind that edged up at the corners of their mouths because, at any time, one of them could pull a proverbial knife: a haircut might look stupid, the wrong color nail polish could be on fingernails, the wrong shoes, the wrong tights, the wrong word and suddenly you were on the outside looking in.

Charlie could still recall what it felt like to be stuck in the purgatory of the outside. There was nothing more torturous, more lonely, than being iced out by a gaggle of teenage girls.

“Cake?” Belinda offered her a paper-thin slice of sheet cake.

“Hm,” was all Charlie could say. Her stomach felt queasy. She couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling around the sparsely furnished rec room. The girls were all young, thin and beautiful in a way that Charlie did not appreciate when she was among them. Short miniskirts. Tight T-shirts and blouses opened one button too many. They seemed so frighteningly confident. They flicked back their long, fake blonde hair as they laughed. They narrowed expertly made-up eyes as they listened to stories. Sashes were askew. Vests were unbuttoned. Some of these girls were in serious violation of the Girl Scout dress code.

Charlie said, “I can’t remember what we talked about when we were that age.”

“That the Culpepper girls were a bunch of bitches.”

Charlie winced at the name of her torturers. She took the plate from Belinda, but only to keep her hands occupied. “Why aren’t any of them asking me questions?”

“We never asked questions,” Belinda said, and Charlie felt instant regret that she had spurned all the career women who had spoken at her Girl Scout meetings. The speakers had all seemed so old. Charlie was not old. She still had her badge-filled sash in a closet somewhere at home. She was a kick-ass lawyer. She was married to an adorable guy. She was in the best shape of her life. These girls should think she was awesome. They should be inundating her with questions about how she got to be so cool instead of snickering in their little cliques, likely discussing how much pig’s blood to put in a bucket over Charlie’s head.

“I can’t believe their make-up,” Belinda said. “My mother almost scrubbed the eyes off my face when I tried to sneak out with mascara on.”

Charlie’s mother had been killed when she was thirteen, but she could recall many a lecture from Lenore, her father’s secretary, about the dangerous message sent by too-tight Jordache jeans.

Not that Lenore had been able to stop her.

Belinda said, “I’m not going to raise Layla like that.” She meant her three-year-old daughter, who had somehow turned out to be a thoughtful, angelic child despite her mother’s lifelong love of beer pong, tequila shooters, and unemployed guys who rode motorcycles. “These girls, they’re sweet, but they have no sense of shame. They think everything they do is okay. And don’t even get me started on the sex. The things they say in meetings.” She snorted, leaving out the best part. “We were never like that.”

Charlie had seen quite the opposite, especially when a Harley was involved. “I guess the point of feminism is that they have choices, not that they do exactly what we think they should do.”

“Well, maybe, but we’re still right and they’re still wrong.”

“Now you sound like a mother.” Charlie used her fork to cut off a section of chocolate frosting from the cake. It landed like paste on her tongue. She handed the plate back to Belinda. “I was terrified of disappointing my mom.”

Belinda finished the cake. “I was terrified of your mom, period.”

Charlie smiled, then she put her hand to her stomach as the frosting roiled around like driftwood in a tsunami.

“You okay?” Belinda asked.

Charlie held up her hand. The sickness came over her so suddenly that she couldn’t even ask where the bathroom was.

Belinda knew the look. “It’s down the hall on the—”

Charlie bolted out of the room. She kept her hand tight to her mouth as she tried doors. A closet. Another closet.

A fresh-faced Girl Scout was coming out of the last door she tried.

“Oh,” the teenager said, flinging up her hands, backing away.

Charlie ran into the closest stall and sloughed the contents of her stomach into the toilet. The force was so much that tears squeezed out of her eyes. She gripped the side of the bowl with both hands. She made grunting noises that she would be ashamed for any human being to hear.

But someone did hear.

“Ma’am?” the teenager asked, which somehow made everything worse, because Charlie was not old enough to be called ma’am. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, thank you. You can go away.” Charlie bit her lip so that she wouldn’t curse the helpful little creature like a dog. She searched for her purse. It was outside the stall. Her wallet had fallen out, her keys, a pack of gum, loose change. The strap dragged across the greasy-looking tile floor like a tail. She started to reach out for it, but gave up when her stomach clenched. All she could do was sit on the filthy bathroom floor, gather her hair up off her neck, and pray that her troubles would be confined to one end of her body.

“Ma’am?” the girl repeated.

Charlie desperately wanted to tell her to get the hell out, but couldn’t risk opening her mouth. She waited, eyes closed, listening to the silence, begging her ears to pick out the sound of the door closing as the girl left.

Instead, the faucet was turned on. Water ran into the sink. Paper towels were pulled from the dispenser.

Charlie opened her eyes. She flushed the toilet. Why on earth was she so ill?

It couldn’t be the cake. Charlie was lactose intolerant, but Belinda would never make anything from scratch. Canned frosting was 99 percent chemicals, usually not enough to send her over the edge. Was it the happy chicken from General Ho’s she’d had for supper last night? The egg roll she’d sneaked out of the fridge before going to bed? The luncheon meat she’d scarfed down before her morning run? The breakfast burrito fiesta she’d gotten at Taco Bell on the way to the Y?

Jesus, she ate like a sixteen-year-old boy.

The faucet turned off.

Charlie should have at least opened the stall door, but a quick survey of the damage changed her mind. Her navy skirt was hiked up. Pantyhose ripped. There were splatters on her white silk blouse that would likely never come out. Worst of all, she had scuffed the toe of her new shoe, a navy high-heel Lenore had helped her pick out for court.

“Ma’am?” the teen said. She was holding a wet paper towel under the stall door.

“Thank you,” Charlie managed. She pressed the cool towel to the back of her neck and closed her eyes again. Was this a stomach bug?

“Ma’am, I can get you something to drink,” the girl offered.

Charlie almost threw up again at the thought of Belinda’s cough-mediciney punch. If the girl was not going to leave, she might as well be put to use. “There’s some change in my wallet. Do you mind getting a ginger ale from the machine?”

The girl knelt down on the floor. Charlie saw the familiar khaki-colored sash with badges sewn all over it. Customer Loyalty. Business Planning. Marketing. Financial Literacy. Top Seller. Apparently, she knew how to move some cookies.

Charlie said, “The bills are in the side.”

The girl opened her wallet. Charlie’s driver’s license was in the clear plastic part. “I thought your last name was Quinn?”

“It is. At work. That’s my married name.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Four and a half years.”

“My gran says it takes five years before you hate them.”

Charlie could not imagine ever hating her husband. She also couldn’t imagine keeping up her end of this under-stall conversation. The urge to puke again was tickling at the back of her throat.

“Your dad is Rusty Quinn,” the girl said, which meant that she has been in town for more than ten minutes. Charlie’s father had a reputation in Pikeville because of the clients he defended—convenience store robbers, drug dealers, murderers and assorted felons. How people in town viewed Rusty generally depended on whether or not they or a family member ever needed his services.

The girl said, “I heard he helps people.”

“He does.” Charlie did not like how the words echoed back to Dexter’s reminder that she had turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in the city so that she could work for people who really needed her. If there was one guiding ethos in Charlie’s life, it was that she was not going to be like her father.

“I bet he’s expensive.” The girl asked, “Are you expensive? I mean, when you help people?”

Charlie put her hand to her mouth again. How could she ask this teenager to please get her some ginger ale without screaming at her?

“I enjoyed your speech,” the girl said. “My mom was killed in a car accident when I was little.”

Charlie waited for context, but there was none. The girl slid a dollar bill out of Charlie’s wallet and finally, thankfully, left.

There was nothing to do in the ensuing silence but see if she could stand. Charlie had fortuitously ended up in the handicapped stall. She gripped the metal rails and shakily pulled herself up to standing. She spat into the toilet a few times before flushing it again. When she opened the stall door, the mirror greeted her with a pale, sickly-looking woman in a $120 puke-spotted silk blouse. Her dark hair looked wild. Her lips had a bluish tint.

Charlie lifted her hair, holding it in a ponytail. She turned on the sink and slurped water into her mouth. She caught her reflection again as she leaned down to spit.

Her mother’s eyes looked back at her. Her mother’s arched eyebrow.

What’s going on in that mind of yours, Charlie?

Charlie had heard this question at least three or four times a week back when her mother was alive. She would be sitting in the kitchen doing her homework, or on the floor of her room trying to do some kind of craft project, and her mother would sit opposite her and ask the same question that she always asked.

What is going on in your mind?

It was not contrived to be a conversation starter. Her mother was a scientist and a scholar. She had never been one for idle chitchat. She was genuinely curious about what thoughts filled her thirteen-year-old daughter’s head.

Until Charlie had met her husband, no one else had ever expressed such genuine interest.

The door opened. The girl was back with a ginger ale. She was pretty, though not conventionally so. She did not seem to fit in with her perfectly coifed peers. Her dark hair was long and straight, pinned back with a silver clip on one side. She was young-looking, probably fifteen, but her face was absent of make-up. Her crisp green Girl Scout T-shirt was tucked into her faded jeans, which Charlie felt was unfair because in her day they had been forced to wear scratchy white button-up shirts and khaki skirts with knee socks.

Charlie did not know which felt worse, that she had thrown up or that she had just employed the phrase, “in her day.”

“I’ll put the change in your wallet,” the girl offered.

“Thank you.” Charlie drank some of the ginger ale while the girl neatly repacked the contents of her purse.

The girl said, “Those stains on your blouse will come out with a mixture of a tablespoon of ammonia, a quart of warm water and a half a teaspoon of detergent. You soak it in a bowl.”

“Thank you again.” Charlie wasn’t sure she wanted to soak anything she owned in ammonia, but judging by the badges on the sash, the girl knew what she was talking about. “How long have you been in Girl Scouts?”

“I got my start as a Brownie. My mom signed me up. I thought it was lame, but you learn lots of things, like business skills.”

“My mom signed me up, too.” Charlie had never thought it was lame. She had loved all the projects and the camping trips and especially eating the cookies she had made her parents buy. “What’s your name?”

“Flora Faulkner,” she said. “My mom named me Florabama, because I was born on the state line, but I go by Flora.”

Charlie smiled, but only because she knew that she was going to laugh about this later with her husband. “There are worse things that you could be called.”

Flora looked down at her hands. “A lot of the girls are pretty good at thinking of mean things.”

Clearly, this was some kind of opening, but Charlie was at a loss for words. She combed back through her knowledge of after-school specials. All she could remember was that movie of the week where Ted Danson is married to Glenn Close and she finds out that he’s molesting their teenage daughter but she’s been cold in bed so it’s probably her fault so they all go to therapy and learn to live with it.

“Miss Quinn?” Flora put Charlie’s purse on the counter. “Do you want me to get you some crackers?”

“No, I’m fine.” Remarkably, Charlie was fine. Whatever had made her stomach upset had passed “why don’t you give me a minute to clean myself up, then I’ll join you back in the rec room?”

“Okay,” Flora said, but she didn’t leave.

“Is there anything else?”

“I was wondering—” She glanced at the mirror over the sink, then back down at the floor. There was something delicate about the girl that Charlie had not noticed before. When Flora looked up again, she was crying. “Can you help me? I mean, as a lawyer?”

Visit Colloquium on August 21, 2017, to read my review of The Good Daughter!

Julia Gooden, a Detroit newspaper reporter, finds herself confronting both the city’s most devious criminal, Nick Rossi, and her own painful past.

Julia knows how to juggle her priorities. As a successful crime reporter, she covers tough city stories while raising her two young boys in the suburbs. But beneath her accomplished façade lives another Julia — the one who is still consumed by the tragedy that beset her family thirty years ago. Her nine-year-old brother disappeared without a trace.

Julia’s is attempting to reboot her marriage to Assistant District Attorney David Tanner. They’ve always had a strict rule about maintaining professional boundaries. David is about to bring Rossi to trial for drug trafficking, illegal gambling, and bribery. But when a courthouse bomb claims several victims —- including the prosecution’s key witness —- and leaves David critically injured, it’s a story Julia has to cover.

Julia is certain that Rossi orchestrated the attack, but the case against him is far from solid, and his power and connections run high and wide. Alongside Detroit PD Detective Raymond Navarro, with whom Julia has a long history, she follows a dangerous trail of blackmail, payback, and political ambition that may have personal repercussions she could never imagine. Julia has risked her career before, but this time innocent lives, including her children’s, are at stake.

Review:

Author Jane HaseldineAuthor Jane Haseldine follows up her first Julia Gooden installment, The Last Time She Saw Him, with a stand-alone, layered story that is both a pulse-pounding thriller and a thoughtful examination of her protagonist’s relationships with those most important to her.

Is is possible to ever really know another person? Is the ability to trust someone completely truly an elusive goal? Those questions plague Julia Gooden. Despite their marital problems, Julia felt confident that her estranged husband, David, would never cross certain ethical boundaries. But on the very morning that he is set to begin prosecuting the notorious Rossi, a bomb rocks the courthouse. The intended target appears to have been the prosecution’s star witness, whose testimony was paramount in order to put Rossi behind bars for a long time. David is critically injured and Julia is determined, despite her editor’s orders, to uncover the truth. Not just because she wants to nail the biggest story of her career. But because her investigation uncovers disturbing evidence about what really happened leading up to that morning and what was transpiring in the courthouse at the very moment that the bomb detonated.

Julia has always had a hard time trusting anyone and her troubled relationship with David has only exacerbated her unease. At the outset of the story, David wants to reconcile, but Julia is hesitant, in part because she does not want to again disappoint their two young sons if, ultimately, the marriage fails. And because her reporter’s instincts propel her to ask questions about every aspect of a story — and her own life — Julia is compelled to learn the truth before fulling committing herself to the relationship again. Julia’s actions are fueled by her own family history. Her older brother was abducted from the room they shared while Julia slept. Although she was just seven years old at the time, Julia carries the guilt of being unable to aid the police in their search for Ben, who was never found. That event inspired Julia to become a reporter, as Haseline describes it, “since she never found out the ending to her own story. The only answers she can find now are for others, the victims, or those they left behind. She is driven to give them closure and find out the truth.”

In the aftermath of the bombing, Julia’s realizes that her family is in grave danger, sending her on a treacherous journey for answers, aided by sources and allies with whom she has cultivated relationships over the years. She is not fearless because she is a highly savvy and experienced reporter who knows exactly how far the criminals she is investigating will go in order to achieve their goals. But her fear does not slow her down because she is also tenacious and, most importantly, a mother who will do anything to protect her children, in addition to being spurred on by her own inner turmoil. So despite the risks, Julia will not stop digging until she gets the whole story, even though she is confident there will be consequences — professional and personal.

Haseldine deftly weaves Julia’s personal crisis of trust and faith in all the things she thought she knew about her husband and his principles into a taut, fast-paced race for the whole truth. As Julia follows one lead after another, she is aided and supported by Navarro, the man she loved before David, who has never stopped caring for her. Haseldine provides a full array of supporting characters, including the seedy Rossi, his trophy wife, and a particularly twisted henchman, not to mention the city of Detroit itself, with all infusing authenticity and interest in Julia’s story.

Duplicity is an entertaining mystery with surprising depth, featuring a strong lead female character who inspires empathy and compassion in readers, to which Haseldine delivers a shocking, but satisfying ending to this particular chapter of Julia Gooden’s life story.

Middle-aged brothers Jason and Tom Prendergast have been estranged for years, each thinking their relationship was irrevocably severed. Perceived betrayal, resentments, and pride burned the familial bridge connecting them.

They are brought back together when their cruel father dies and his attorney advises them that the old man had one final request. In order to receive what he has bequeathed to them, they must travel together across the country to spread his ashes, and provide confirmation when they have done so. Determined to learn just what their father has left them, they have no choice but to endure spend a long car trip in each other’s company . . . or lose out on the contents of the envelope their father entrusted to his lawyer.

The journey proves to be as gut-wrenching as each brother anticipates, but also revealing in ways neither of them is prepared for.

Review:

Author Steven ManchesterAfter serving in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, author Steven Manchester embarked on a career as a prison investigator and studied criminal justice. But when one of his professors challenged him to write about corrections, Manchester found his calling. Twenty-five years and four best-selling novels later, his latest effort, Ashes, features the character of Jason Prendergast, a hardened Correctional Sergeant nearing retirement. The elder brother, Jason has spent his working life dealing with inmates incarcerated in a penal institution, and knows how to fight. Jason’s life is out of control — he’s overweight, drinks and gambles too much, and is facing a disciplinary investigation that might end his career prematurely. The one bright light in his life is his daughter. She’s planning an elaborate wedding — encouraged by her mother, Jason’s ex-wife — and Jason is hell-bent on financing the fairy tale day for his princess. With his debts and bad habits mounting, Jason is motivated to make the cross-country trek with his brother by the promise that just maybe their father managed to leave them something of value.

Tom, a college professor, has a son and daughter who don’t communicate with him unless he threatens to discontinue their cellular service, and his own marital problems. He’s also facing a health crisis, but his curiosity and need to escape the stresses of his day-to-day life propel him to attempt to discover what motivated their father to condition their inheritance, such as it may be, upon the completion of such an emotionally and physically trying trip.

Jason and Tom’s father is a key character in the story, revealed through each son’s memories of a difficult childhood. After losing their mother, the boys were left in the care of a man who was mean-spirited and abusive. He bestowed horrible nicknames upon each of his boys, humiliated them publicly, and instilled in each of them — for similar, but distinct reasons — a lifelong hatred of him. Neither of them is sorry he has at last died, making for some tragically hilarious moments as they transport the box containing his ashes in order to comply with his final demand upon them.

Anyone with a sibling will find much to relate to in Ashes. Outwardly, Jason and Tom are opposites who detest each other’s habits and preferences in just about everything, including food, music, hotel accommodations. They negotiate who will drive and what type of radio station they will listen to, along with the types of restaurants and hotels they will patronize. Their bickering is frequently hilarious — anyone with a sibling will relate to their frustration with each other. Equally humorous is their commiseration about the exasperating and bewildering challenges of growing older with which readers in the same age range (50’s) or older will relate. Yet despite the falling out that separated them years before, they are forever bound together not just by blood, but their childhood experiences, described by Manchester in heartbreaking detail.

Manchester includes a plot twist many readers will never see coming that changes everything for Jason and Tom, causing them to complete the process of self-evaluation and reflection that their reunion ignites for each of them. The brothers gradually open up to each other, finally discussing old assumptions and grudges. Their insights take readers on an emotional, highly relatable journey with Jason and Tom.

Manchester has crafted a story that is both entertaining and touching, demonstrating repeatedly that those we think we know best are often the very people about whom we actually know the least. The result is a poignant reminder that assumptions, coupled with anger, can damage relationships seemingly beyond repair, but sibling relationships are at once the most tenuous and resilient. Ashes is a surprisingly touching story of two brothers who receive a wonderful gift — a second chance to truly be brothers despite all that they have endured collectively and individually. Finding out whether they accept that gift makes for an endearing and worthwhile reading experience.

Excerpt from Ashes

Tom wheeled his late-model, platinum-colored BMW into Attorney Russell Norman’s freshly paved lot and parked between a brand new Lexus—sporting the license plate JUSTIS4U—and a custom pickup truck. Looks like I’m going after the hillbilly, he thought when he spotted the faded Massachusetts Department of Correction sticker in the rear window. His blood turned cold. “It must be Jason,” he thought aloud. I didn’t think he’d come.

Tom took a few deep breaths, not because he was nervous about his father’s death or talking to any lawyer but because he hadn’t seen his Neanderthal brother—for fifteen years, I think. He paused for a moment to give it more thought. Although their relationship had essentially vaporized in their late teens—the result of a fall out that still haunted his dreams—they’d occasionally wound up in each other’s orbits; weddings, funerals, and the like, enough to remain familiar with each other’s career choices, wives, and children. But even that came to an end fifteen years ago, he confirmed in his aching head before opening the door. While his toothache-induced migraine threatened to blind him, he took one step into the oak-paneled waiting room. His and Jason’s eyes met for the briefest moment. As though they were complete strangers, they both looked away. And here he is, Tom thought, disappointed. This is just great.

Through peripheral vision, Tom noticed that his older brother now wore a scar over his right eye, just above a bushy eyebrow that could have easily belonged to a homeless Scotsman. A jagged ear lobe, a piece clearly torn away, pointed to a crooked nose that sat sideways on his face—all of it rearranged since birth. What a big tub of shit he’s turned into, Tom thought, struggling to ignore his throbbing face and head. He’s as fat as a wood tick now, he thought, grinning, and he looks like he’s ready to pop. Jason looked straight at him, as if reading his mind. Tom immediately looked away, his rapid heartbeat starting to pound in his ears, intensifying his physical pain. Unbelievable, he thought. After all the years and all the distance, his elder brother—by only two years—still scared the hell out of him. He’s just a big asshole, that’s all, he told himself, but he still couldn’t bring himself to rejoin his brother’s penetrating gaze.
The secretary answered her phone before calling out, “Mr. Prendergast . . .”

Both brothers stood.

“Attorney Norman will see you now.”

Tom walked in first, letting the door close behind him—right in Jason’s face.

“Still a weasel,” Jason muttered, loud enough for all to hear.

“What was that?” Tom asked just inside the door.

“Don’t even think about playing with me,” Jason warned as he reopened the door and entered the room, “’cause I have no problem throwing you over my knee and spanking you right in front of this guy.”

I’m fifty years old, for God’s sake, Tom thought, and he thinks he’s going to spank me? I’m surprised the prison even let him out.

The attorney—his hand extended for anyone willing to give it a shake—looked mortified by the childish exchange.
Tom shook the man’s hand before settling into a soft leather wing chair. Jason followed suit.

The room was framed in rich mahogany paneling. The desk could have belonged in the oval office. Beneath a green-glassed banker’s lamp, stacks of file folders took up most of the vast desktop. An American flag stood in one corner, while framed diplomas and certificates, bearing witness to the man’s intelligence and vast education, covered the brown walls.
Attorney Norman wore a pinstriped shirt and pleated, charcoal-colored slacks held up by a pair of black suspenders. He had a bow tie, a receding hairline that begged to be shaved bald, and a pair of eyeglasses that John Lennon would have been proud to call his own. There’s no denying it, Tom thought, trying to ignore his brother’s wheezing beside him, he’s either a lawyer or a banker. He couldn’t be anything else.

While Jason squirmed in his seat, visibly uncomfortable to be sitting in a lawyer’s office, his hands squeezed the arms of the chair. What a chicken shit, Tom thought, trying to make himself feel better. Peering sideways, he noticed that his brother’s knuckles were so swollen with scar tissue they could have belonged to a man who made his living as a bare-knuckle brawler. He’s still an animal too, he decided.

Attorney Norman took a seat, grabbed a manila file from atop the deep stack and cleared his throat. “The reason you’re both here . . .”

“. . . is to make sure the old man’s really dead,” Jason interrupted.

In spite of himself and his harsh feelings for his brother, Tom chuckled—drawing looks from both men.

“The reason we’re all here,” Attorney Norman repeated, “is to read Stuart Prendergast’s last will and testament.” He flipped open the folder.

This ought to be good, Tom thought, while Jason took a deep breath and sighed heavily. Both brothers sat erect in their plush chairs, waiting to hear more.

As if he were Stuart Prendergast sitting there in the flesh, the mouthpiece read, “My final wish is that my two sons, Jason and Thomas, bring my final remains to 1165 Milford Road in Seattle, Washington, where they will spread my ashes.”

“Seattle?” Tom blurted, his wagging tongue catching his tooth, making him wince in pain. Quickly concealing his weakness, he slid to the edge of his seat. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he mumbled, careful not to touch the tooth again.
Jason was shaking his head. “Hell no,” he said.

The attorney read on. “I’ve always been afraid to fly, so I’m asking that I not be transported by airplane but driven by car.”

“No way,” Tom instinctively sputtered.

Jason laughed aloud. “This is just great. The old bastard’s dead and he’s still screwing with us.”

The less-than-amused attorney revealed a sealed envelope and continued on. “As my final gift to my sons . . .”

“I’m leaving this sealed envelope for them to share, once and only once they’ve taken me to my final resting place.”
“What the fuck!” Jason blurted.

Every cell in Tom’s overloaded brain flashed red. Don’t do it, he thought. You don’t owe that old man a damned thing. But every cell in his body was flooded with curiosity. He looked at Jason, who was no longer shaking his fat head.
“Maybe the bastard finally hit it big at the dog track?” Jason suggested.

Tom nodded in agreement but secretly wondered, Could it be the deed to the land Pop bragged about owning in Maine? He stared at the envelope. For as long as I can remember, he claimed to own forty-plus acres with a brook running straight through it. He stared harder. Could it be? he wondered, wishing he had X-ray vision. A parcel of land in Maine sure would make a nice retirement . . .

“How ’bout we travel separately and meet in Seattle to spread the ashes?” Jason said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Great idea,” Tom said, hoping against all hope that the idea would fly with their father’s lawyer.

Attorney Norman shook his head. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but your father specifically requested that you travel together with his remains to Seattle. Any deviation from this can and will prohibit you from attaining the sealed envelope.”

There was a long pause, the room blanketed in a heavy silence. Son of a bitch, Tom thought, this couldn’t have come at a worse time. He turned to Jason, who was already looking at him. “What do you say?” he asked, already cursing his inability to curb his curiosity.

Jason shook his head in disgust. “The last thing I want to do is to go on some stupid road trip with you.”

“Trust me, that’s a mutual feeling,” Tom shot back.

“But I don’t think we have a choice,” Jason added. “Our fucked-up father wants to play one last game with us, so to hell with it—let’s play.”

This is insane, but he’s right, Tom thought. With a single nod, Tom stood. “Okay, let’s have the ashes then,” he told the lawyer.

The attorney shook his head. “I don’t have them. They’re currently at a funeral home in Salem.”

“Salem?” Tom squeaked, unhappy that his tone betrayed his distress.

“That’s right. You have to take custody of your father’s remains from the Buffington Funeral Home in Salem, Massachusetts.”

“You must be shitting me.” Jason said.

The attorney smirked. “I shit you not,” he said, throwing the letter onto his desk.

Salem? Tom repeated in his head. Just when I thought Pop couldn’t be a bigger prick . . . The migraine knocked even harder from the inside of his skull, making him feel nauseous. Amid the pain, his synapses fired wildly, considering all this would mean: I’ll have to take bereavement leave from school and find someone to cover my classes. I should probably double my treatment with Dr. Baxter tomorrow. And what about Caleb and Caroline? he asked himself, quickly deciding, They’ll be fine without me for a few days. Then he pictured his wife’s face. And Carmen, she’ll be fine without me for a lot longer than that. The nausea increased. Screw her.

“Are we done here?” Jason asked, obviously itching to leave.

The lawyer nodded. “I’ll need proof in the form of a video or a series of photos that you’ve deposited your father’s remains where he wished. Once I have that, the letter’s all yours.”

“How wonderful,” Jason said sarcastically. He stood, turned on his heels, and headed for the door.

Tom also got to his feet. He looked at the lawyer and, trying to ignore his physical discomfort, he smiled. “Don’t mind him,” he said, shrugging. “That imbecile is exactly what our father trained him to be.”

Things aren’t going well for Grayson Hernandez. He comes from a working-class immigrant family, graduated from a fourth-tier law school, is drowning in student loans, and the only job he can find is as a messenger at the United States Supreme Court. Gray watches the elite and privileged group of lawyers who serve as the justices’ law clerks . . . from the outside.

Gray happens upon and intervenes in a violent mugging of Chief Justice Douglas who expresses his gratitude by making Gray the newest — and unlikeliest — law clerk at the Supreme Court. Suddenly Gray is thrust into highbrow debates over justice and the law inside the inner sanctum of the America’s highest court, upscale dinners with his new colleagues, and attention from Lauren Hart, the brilliant and beautiful co-clerk.

Just as Gray is adapting to his new life, the FBI informs him they believe a series of killings are connected to the Supreme Court. Special Agent Emma Millstein wants Gray to be the FBI’s eyes and ears inside One First Street, a world cloaked in secrecy. The killer has struck several times on the fifth day of the month, leaving cryptic clues at the crime scenes. Can Gray make sense of those clues and identify the killer before he or she claims yet another victim and the FBI sets its sights on him?

Review:

Author Anthony FranzeAnthony Franze, an appellate attorney who has argued more than 30 cases before and provided commentary about the U.S. Supreme Court, offers up his third thriller set within the mysterious world of the Court. As with his previous novels, Franze’s familiarity with the inner workings of the Court, combined with historical details about former justices and some of the Court’s most scandalous and maligned decisions, provide an intriguing backdrop against which the murder mystery plays out.

Grayson Hernandez grew up working in his family’s pizza restaurant and, as the story opens, is living in a modest apartment, barely eking out a living on a messenger’s salary as he struggles to manage a mountain of student loans. Gray is also suffering from a crisis of confidence and lack of hope. In his messenger uniform, working out of a cubicle, Gray observes and envies the justices’ clerks — recent law school graduates of prestigious, Ivy league schools from powerful, connected families who will bank $300,000 to $400,000 signing bonuses from top law firms after their one-year clerkships. Gray ponders why such opportunities are foreclosed to him.

Gray’s fortunes improve after he comes to the rescue of Chief Justice Douglas one evening in the parking garage. If not for Gray, the Chief Justice may not have survived the brutal assault. The Chief Justice takes an interest in Gray and awards him a coveted clerkship. In addition to taking an interest in Gray’s career, the Chief Justice offers Gray the use of his apartment and vehicle, buys Gray expensive tailored suits, and invites Gray to dine with him in restaurants Gray could never afford to patronize. As thrilled as he is by his new circumstances, Gray struggles to fit in with his resentful male colleagues. The lovely, intelligent Lauren now also takes an interest in Gray. But a former outsider does not instantaneously adjust to being part of an influential inner circle of power, as Gray soon realizes.

Gray’s life is further complicated by the FBI’s intrusion. Agent Millstein enlists him to access information she is prohibited from obtaining herself because of the ongoing power struggle between competing law enforcement agencies. The Supreme Court’s own chief of security does not want to yield jurisdiction to the FBI, actively campaigning for the establishment of a task force, further exasperating Agent Millstein who is intent upon preventing more killings as the fifth of the month again looms.

Franze constructs an intricate backstory, at the center of which is a ruling from the Chief Justice many years ago before his elevation to the High Court. Because he ruled that Constitutional construction required certain evidence to be suppressed, a defendant escaped justice for a heinous crime. Now a series of murders are punctuated by seemingly indecipherable messages left by the killer, along with quill pens presented as keepsakes to attorneys who come before the Supreme Court. The only way to prevent more deaths is for the authorities to determine whether the killings are, in fact, linked to each other and the Supreme Court. Once Agent Millstein enlists Gray, he becomes as driven as she to find the killer and prevent him or her from striking again.

Of course, Gray finds himself in grave danger — is he a potential victim or being set up to be charged with the murders? Either way, the pace of the story accelerates as Gray begins, with Lauren’s help, piecing together the significance of the clues. Franze assembles an eclectic cast of supporting characters. In addition to Agent Millstein, Lauren, and their fellow clerks, there are, of course, the Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice Douglas’s lifelong friend, fellow justice, and rival, which raises the question of whether their lifetime of competition with each other has gone too far. Most intriguing are Gray’s childhood friends, Samantha and Arturo, who remained in the old neighborhood, his life evolving in a direction diametrically opposed to Gray’s efforts to elevate and remove himself. But Samantha and Arturo prove that no matter where one goes in life, true friendship and loyalty can never be overvalued. Via Arturo, Franze pays homage to The Outsiders, the classic S.E. Hinton novel and the character of Johnny Cade, who was neglected and abused by his parents, noting that the Hinton story “meant a lot to me as a kid.”

The Outsider is a fast read that propels the action forward with clues interspersed at perfectly-timely intervals, keeping the reader guessing about the killer’s identity and motive. It is also thought-provoking, not just because of Arturo’s conflicted feelings as he seeks to reconcile his upbringing with the career he desires. The inclusion of clues to the killer’s identity are cloaked in some of the worst, most shameful decisions ever rendered by the Supreme Court, thereby elevating The Outsider as compared with Franze’s earlier efforts, and providing depth to what could otherwise be just another escapist murder mystery. Fans of legal thrillers will find The Outsider gripping and intriguing — and themselves rooting for Gray, the outsider.

Excerpt from The Outsider

PROLOGUE

When her computer pinged, Amanda Hill ignored it. This late at night, she shouldn’t have, but she did.

All her energy was focused on tomorrow’s closing argument. Her office was dark, save the sharp cone of light from the desk lamp. She’d waited for everyone to leave so she could run through her final words to the jury. So she could practice as she’d done a thousand times, pacing her office in front of imaginary jurors, explaining away the evidence against the latest criminal mastermind she’d been appointed to represent. This one had left prints and DNA, and vivid images of the robbery had been captured by surveillance cameras.

She glanced out her window into the night. Normal people were home tucking in their children, watching a little TV before hitting the sack. Her little girl deserved better. She should call to check in, but she needed to get the closing done. Amanda’s mother was watching Isabelle, and her mom would call if she needed anything.

There was another ping. Then another. Irritated, Amanda reached for the mouse and clicked to her email. The subject line grabbed her attention:

URGENT MESSAGE ABOUT YOUR MOTHER AND ISABELLE!

Amanda opened the email. Strange, there was no name in the sender field. And the message had only a link. Was this one of those phishing scams?

She almost deleted it, but the subject line caught her eye again. Her seven year old’s name.

Her cursor hovered over the link— then she clicked. A video appeared on the screen. The footage was shaky, filmed on a smartphone. The scene was dark, but for a flashlight beam hitting a dirty floor. Then a whisper: “You have thirty minutes to get here or they die.”
A chill slithered down Amanda’s back. This was a joke, right? A sick joke? She moved the mouse to shut down the video, but the flashlight ray crawled up a grimy wall and stopped on two figures. Amanda’s heart jumped into her throat. It was her mother and Isabelle. Bound, gagged, weeping.

The camera zoomed in on Isabelle’s tear-streaked face. Amanda’s computer began buzzing and flashing, consumed by a tornado virus.

Amanda drove erratically from her downtown office to Dupont Circle. She kept one eye on the road, the other on her smartphone that guided her to the only address she could find for “Dupont Underground,” the abandoned street trolley line that ran under Washington, D.C.

Her mind raced. Why was this happening? It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be a kidnapping for ransom. She had no money— she was a public defender, for Christ’s sake. A disgruntled client? No, this was too well organized. Too sophisticated. Common criminals, Amanda knew from her years representing them, were uneducated bumblers, not the type to plan out anything in their lives, much less something like this.
She checked the phone. She had only fifteen minutes. The GPS said she’d be there in five. She tried to calm herself, control her breathing. She should call the police. But the warning played in her head: We’ll know. And they’ll die.

She pulled over on New Hampshire Avenue. The GPS said this was the place, but she saw no entrance to any underground. It was a business district. Law firms and lobby shops locked up for the night. She looked around, panicked and confused. There was nothing but a patch of construction across the street. Work on a manhole or sewer line. Or trolley entrance. Amanda leapt from her car and ran to the construction area. A four-foot-tall rectangular plywood structure jutted up from the sidewalk. It had a door on top, like a storm cellar. The padlock latch had been pried open, the wood splintered. Amanda swung open the door and peered down into the gloom.

She shouldn’t go down there. But she heard a noise. A muffled scream? Amanda pointed her phone’s flashlight into the chasm. A metal ladder disappeared into the darkness. She steeled herself, then climbed into the opening, the only light the weak bulb on her phone. When she reached the bottom, she stood quietly, looking down the long tunnel, listening. She heard the noise again and began running toward it.
That’s when she heard the footsteps behind her. She ran faster, her breaths coming in rasps, the footfalls from behind keeping pace. She wanted to turn and fight. She was a god-damned fighter. “Amanda Hill, The Bitch of Fifth Street,” she’d heard the defendants call her around the courthouse. But the image of Isabelle and her mother’s faces, their desperation, drew her on.

The footsteps grew closer. She needed to suppress the fear, to find her family.

The blow to the head came without warning and slammed her to the ground. There was the sound of a boot stomping on plastic and the flashlight on her phone went out. The figure grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her to a small room off the tunnel. She was gasping for air now.

A lantern clicked on. Amanda heard the scurrying of tiny feet. She saw the two masses in the shadows and felt violently ill: her mother and Isabelle. Soiled rags stuffed in their mouths, hands and feet bound. Next to them the silhouette of someone spray-painting on the wall.
Amanda sat up quickly, and a piercing pain shot through her skull. She averted her eyes, hoping it was all a nightmare. But a voice cut through the whimpering of her family.

“Look at them!” Amanda lifted her gaze. She forced a smile, feigned a look of optimism, then mouthed a message to her daughter: It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.

It was a lie, of course. A godforsaken lie.

CHAPTER 1

Grayson Hernandez walked up to the lectern in the well of the U.S. Supreme Court. He wasn’t intimidated by the marble columns that encased the room or the elevated mahogany bench where The Nine had been known to skewer even the most experienced advocates. He calmly pulled the lever on the side of the lectern to adjust its height, a move he’d learned watching the assistant solicitor generals showing off. He stood up straight and didn’t look down at any notes; the best lawyers didn’t use notes. And he began his oral argument.

“Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court—” He was immediately interrupted, not uncommon since the justices on average asked more than one hundred questions in the half hour of oral argument allotted to each side. But the voice, which rang though the chamber, wasn’t from a justice of the highest court in the land.

“I’ve told you before, Gray, you can’t be in here.” The beam of a flashlight cut across the empty courtroom. Gray held up a hand to shield his eyes. He smiled at the Supreme Court Police officer making his nightly rounds.

“Someday, counselor,” the officer said. “But for now you might wanna focus on getting the nightlies delivered.” The officer swung the ray of light to Gray’s messenger cart filled with the evening’s mail.

Gray waved at the officer, and returned to his cart. The wheel squeaked as he rolled it out of the courtroom and into the marble hallway.
In Chief Justice Douglas’s chambers, two law clerks were sitting in the reception area, fifteen feet apart, tossing a football between them. They seemed punchy, wired after a long day at the office, talking about one of the court’s cases.

“A high school has no right to punish a kid for things he says off school grounds. The court needs to finally say so,” one of the clerks said. He was a stocky blond guy. Gray thought his name was Mike. Mike spiraled the ball to the other clerk who looked kind of like a young JFK.
“You’re high if you think the chief is going to side with the student,” JFK said, catching the ball with a loud snap. “You upload a violent rap song on YouTube saying your math teacher is sexually harassing students, you’re gonna get suspended.”

“Even if it’s true?” Mike said. The Supreme Court had thirty-six law clerks, four per justice. It was an internship like no other, promising young lawyers not only a ticket to any legal job in the country, but also the chance to leave their fingerprints on the most important legal questions of the day. The current clerks were all in their late twenties, the same age as Gray, but that’s where the similarities ended. Like the two throwing the ball, almost all were white, from affluent backgrounds. Gray didn’t think there were any Mexican Americans in the clerk pool, and certainly none who grew up in gritty Hamilton Heights, D.C. They’d all gone to Harvard or Yale or institutions that, unlike Gray’s law school, had ivy instead of graffiti on their walls. And they certainly weren’t delivering mail.
Gray nodded hello as he lifted the stacks of certiorari petitions out of his cart and dropped them in the metal in-boxes for the chief ’s clerks.

Mike looked at Gray. “No, not more petitions, I’m begging you.” Gray smiled, but didn’t engage. His boss in the marshal’s office had a rule when it came to the justices and their law clerks: Speak only when necessary.

The ball whizzed across the reception area again. “Is it printed yet?” JFK asked. “I wanna get out of here.” He looked over to the printer, which was humming and spitting out paper. Gray worked tw night shifts a week, and there usually were no less than a dozen clerks still in the office. Theirs was a one-year gig, but they worked as if the justices wanted to squeeze five years out of them.
“It won’t take long,” Mike said. “It’s a short memo, and I just want someone who’s a disagreeable ass to point out any soft spots before I turn it into the chief.”

“You’re wasting your time. He’s never gonna side with the student, he—”

“This case is no different than Tinker v. Des Moines Schools,” Mike countered. “The court said disruptive speech at school could be punished, but not speech made off school grounds. Off-campus speech, including posting something on YouTube, should be covered by the First Amendment just like everything else. It’s none of the school’s business.”

Mike threw the ball hard at his co-clerk. “Hey,” JFK said, shaking off the sting after reeling in the throw. “I’m just saying, the Tinker case was decided in the late sixties. You can’t apply it in the digital world. You’re in an ivory tower if you think the chief will blindly follow Tinker.”

Gray pretended not to listen, but he lingered, enjoying the intellectual banter.

The ball flew by again. “Ivory tower?” Mike said. “Fine, let’s ask an everyman.” He pointed the football at Gray. “Hey, Greg, can we ask you something?”

Mike had once asked Gray his name, a regular man of the people.

“It’s Gray.”

“Sorry. Gray. We have a question: Do you think if a high school student is off campus and posts something offensive on social media a school can punish him for it?”

JFK chimed in: “It’s not just posting something offensive. It’s a profanity-laden rap that accuses a teacher of sexually harassing students and threatens to ‘put a cap’ in the guy.”

Gray pondered the question as he retrieved mail from the outboxes. “I agree with what Murderous Malcolm said about the case.” The clerks shot each other a look. That morning the New York Times ran a story about the case, in which a famous rapper was interviewed and defended the student’s right to free speech. Every morning the Supreme Court’s library sent around an email aggregating news stories relating to the court. Gray was probably the only person at One First Street who read them all.

Gray continued. “I think the First Amendment allows a kid who saw a wrong happening to write a poem about it over a beat.” Gray wheeled the cart toward the door. “And if the chief justice disagrees, you might mention all the violence in those operas he loves so much.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Mike said, spiking the ball, then doing a ridiculous touchdown dance. He strutted over to Gray and gave him a high five.

For a moment, it felt like Gray was a clerk himself, an equal weighing in on the most important school-speech case in decades.
“Hey, Gray,” JFK said. Gray turned, ready to continue his defense of the First Amendment.

“I’ve got some books that need to be delivered to the library.”

When Gray arrived at the gym two hours later, his dad already had his hands wrapped and was hitting the heavy bag. There was a large sweat stain on his shirt. “You’re late,” he called out.

“I told you, I have the night shift on Sundays,” Gray said. His dad didn’t respond, just pounded the bag. He wasn’t going to get any sympathy from Manny Hernandez about the night shift. This was his father’s one night off from the pizza shop. Since his dad’s cancer went into remission, they’d been meeting every Sunday night at the old boxing club in Adams Morgan. Gray would have preferred that they spent these times together somewhere other than a smelly gym, but it made his father happy to see him back in the gloves. It was these moments that Gray was reminded that he probably wasn’t the man his father had dreamed he’d become. With his books and big dreams, Gray was his mother’s boy.

Gray punched the bag, the hits vibrating through him, his thoughts venturing to his earlier encounter with the law clerks. He threw his weight into his right.

Let’s ask an everyman.

Then his left.

I’ve got some books that need to be delivered to the library.

Gray continued to pummel the bag, his heart pounding, sweat dripping from his brow.

“Somethin’ wrong?” His father came and stood behind the bag, holding it in place as Gray kept going at it. “Talk to me.”

At seven the next morning, Gray sat at his cubicle, tired and his muscles aching from the workout the night before. He started his day, as always, slugging down a large coffee while reading SCOTUSblog, a website that covered the court. It was the first day of the new term, and the pundits predicted it would be an exciting year with several landmark cases.

Gray turned when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Shelby, one of the marshal’s aides. A mistake he’d made after a night of drinking with the other aides. She made a point of saying she’d never been with “a guy like him,” which he assumed meant a poor kid from a sketchy side of D.C. She worked part-time while finishing her senior year at Georgetown.

“Martin wants to see you,” she said. Gray looked across the expansive cube farm. He could see Martin Melnick, their supervisor, through the glass walls of his small interior office in the back. He was eating something wrapped in foil. A breakfast burrito, maybe. Shelby’s expression summed up her assessment of Martin: Ick. Martin was in his late thirties, ancient by aide-pool standards. Overweight with bad teeth, he was the antithesis of the bright young things who worked at the high court, the butt of many jokes. He was never particularly nice to Gray; the opposite, actually. But Martin was good at his job and didn’t deserve the ridicule, so Gray kind of rooted for him in all of his slobbiness. Before Gray made his way over to Martin, Shelby said, “Who’s that?” She pointed to a photo pinned to Gray’s cubicle. It was of a boxer in the ring, bruised and battered, arms in the air, standing over his opponent who was out cold.

“My dad, back in the day. He was a fighter in Mexico.” Gray had pinned it up his first day on the job. His own Facebook motivational meme.
Shelby squeezed Gray’s bicep. “I see where you get—”

Martin’s office didn’t help his image. Stacks of papers everywhere. Post-it notes all over the place. He glanced up at Gray and handed him an envelope.

“We got a rush delivery for E.R.D.’s chambers.” E.R.D. were the initials for Edgar R. Douglas, the chief justice. In his month on the job, Gray had learned that the Supreme Court was obsessed with abbreviations and acronyms.

“Oral arguments start at ten, so get this to his clerk ASAP. His name’s on the envelope.”

Gray fast-walked up to the main floor, shuttling through the impressive Great Hall that was lined with marble columns and busts of past chief justices. He nodded at the officer manning the bronze latticework door and made his way to the chief justice’s chambers. The chief ’s secretary, a tough old bird named Olga Romanov, flicked him a glance.

“I have a delivery for Keir Landon.” “The clerks are getting breakfast,” she said in her clipped Eastern European accent.

“Do you know where?”

“Breakfast. Where do you think?” Gray forced a smile, then headed back downstairs to the court’s cafeteria. He marched past the assembly line of trays and the public seating area and into the private room reserved for the law clerks. A group of four were sitting at the long table.

Gray cleared his throat when they didn’t look up. When that didn’t work: “Excuse me. I have a delivery for Keir Landon.”

The guy from last night who looked like JFK popped his head up. He walked over to Gray and plucked the envelope from his hand.

“What’s up, Greg?” Mike said from the group. Before Gray could correct him again on the name, Gray’s phone pinged. A text from Martin, another rush delivery.

Gray hurried out, tapping a text to Martin as he paced quickly through the cafeteria. He didn’t look up until he bumped into someone. A tiny woman in her seventies. It was only when the elderly woman’s food tray hit the floor that Gray recognized her: Justice Rose Fitzgerald Yorke. She looked different without the black robe. Always weird seeing the teacher out of school. Yorke was one of the most beloved members of the court. Gray had read that when Yorke graduated from Harvard in the fifties, the only woman and number one in her class, none of the white-shoe law firms would hire a woman as a lawyer. A few had offered to make her a secretary. Maybe that explained why she ate in the public cafeteria rather than the justices’ private dining room, or why she organized the office birthday celebrations for every single employee at the court. She knew what it was like to be an outsider. She brought what some would derisively call empathy to her jurisprudence.

The manager of the cafeteria was standing there now looking annoyed. He gestured for Justice Yorke to come with him to get a new plate. The manager shot Gray a hard look as he spirited the justice away.

So there he was on the first Monday in October— the opening day of the term—on hands and knees wiping up the floor, the clerks passing by on their way back to chambers.

You just gotta pay your dues, Grayson.

CHAPTER 3

At the end of his shift, Gray headed down to the court’s garage to get his bike. In the elevator down, he contemplated his dinner options. He wasn’t sure if he could take another night of ramen or SpaghettiOs. Maybe he’d go to the pizza shop. Or to his parents’ apartment. Mom could always be counted on for a good meal, and he could bring some laundry. The elevator doors spread open to a field of gray concrete. The bike rack was empty but for his beat-up Schwinn. As he unlocked the chain, he heard a commotion. In the back, behind one of the support beams.

Gray stepped toward the sound. Next to an SUV parked in a reserved spot he saw two men, one had fallen on the ground, the other standing over him. The guy must have slipped. Was he hurt? There was something about how he didn’t try to get up and the stance of the other man that didn’t seem quite right.

“Everything okay?” Gray said. The man who was standing whirled his head around. That’s when Gray noticed the ski mask.

Before Gray could process the situation, the assailant had kicked the man on the ground and charged Gray.

Gray’s father had taught him that when someone is coming at you, in the boxing ring or on the street, time slows. Nature’s way to give you a chance to evade the predator. And that was how Gray dodged the blade that lashed in a wide arc, grazing his abdomen. A panic washed over Gray. And when the attacker came at him again, it wasn’t one of Dad’s bob-and-weaves that saved him, but a crude kick— more Jason Statham than Cassius Clay— that connected to Ski Mask’s chest. The guy slammed into a car, but he didn’t go down. He roared forward at Gray again. Gray did a bull-fighter’s move and pushed the attacker past him, but felt a bite in his side. Ski Mask then jammed something into the small of Gray’s back. He felt a jolt of electricity burning into him— a shockwave up his spine— causing him to spasm and gasp for air. Gray went black for a moment, and then was flat on the cold concrete.

Gray watched as Ski Mask turned his attention to the other man who was on his feet now. It was only then that Gray got a good look at the victim: Chief Justice Douglas. The chief had scurried behind a car and was frantically thumbing a key fob, his panic button. The elevator dinged and Gray heard the slap of dress shoes on concrete, the court’s police.

Still on the ground, Gray shifted his eyes toward the man in the ski mask, but he was gone. Gray’s vision blurred. He heard yelling. Then things went dark.

CHAPTER 4

Gray awoke to the scent of disinfectant and the presence of a crowd in the small hospital room. He must’ve been given painkillers because it was like watching a sitcom, one of those Latino family comedies written by white guys from Harvard. There was Mom, hovering over him, wiping his brow, pushing the giant plastic jug of hospital water at him. Dad, looking tired and too thin, wearing a flour-stained apron, staring at the old box television mounted from the ceiling. And big sis, Miranda, wrangling Gray’s seven-year-old nephew, Emilio.
When they noticed his eyes open, they called for a doctor, and soon an intern was checking Gray’s pupils with a penlight.

Gray never got into drugs, but as he sat back in the relaxed haze, he was starting to understand the fascination. And for the next hour, or maybe it was longer, his family kept talking to him— asking about the garage attack— and he gave woozy responses. God knows what he said.
Sometime later, Gray’s attention turned to a familiar voice at the doorway.

“Always gotta be the hero.” One of his oldest friends, Samantha. When they were in elementary school, Gray had intervened to save Sam from a schoolyard bully, only to have the kid then pummel Gray until Sam put an end to it by giving the kid the worst wedgie Gray had ever seen. Sam still gave him shit for it.

As Sam hugged everyone hello, Gray’s father shadowboxed and said, “He used the moves I taught him.”

Gray didn’t have the heart to tell him that most of the credit went to Jason Statham.

Sam came to his bedside and punched him in the arm.

“What was that for?”

“For being so stupid. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“That’s what I said to him,” Mom said. The room grew loud again with his family talking over one another. Gray watched as his nephew reenacted Gray’s confrontation with the mugger. He was feeling the pull of sleep, more drugs they’d put in the IV, and closed his eyes. He was just about to drift off when the room went suddenly quiet, a rarity at any Hernandez gathering.

His eyes popped open at another voice. “I owe you a thank you.”

There was a tall man standing at his bedside. He wore a sports jacket, shirt open at the collar. It took Gray a moment to realize it wasn’t the drugs, it was really him. Chief Justice Douglas. “It was nothing,” was all Gray managed in response. “No, if you hadn’t arrived when you did, then . . .” the chief’s voice trailed off.

Gray introduced the chief justice to his family. He noticed the chief hold Sam’s gaze a beat longer than comfortable when they shook hands. Sam had that effect on men, and Gray supposed Supreme Court justices were not immune to her beauty. To Gray, she was still the flat-chested tomboy he used to play dodgeball and video games with.

After the introductions, the chief pulled up a chair next to Gray’s bed. It was awkward to talk because the room was compact and his family wasn’t too subtle about the gawking.

“Someone at the court told me you’re a lawyer?” the chief said.

“Top of his class,” Gray’s mother said.

“Mom, please.” Gray felt his face flush.

The chief justice smiled. “The doctors said you’ll be out of commission for a few days.”

“That’s what they said, but I don’t think it’ll be more than a day. I’m already feeling—” He stopped when he saw the hard look his mother was giving him.

“It’s always wise to listen to your mother,” the chief said with a dry chuckle.

His mom nodded, giving a satisfied smile.

“But do me a favor, would you?” the chief continued.

“Of course.”

“When you get back to work, come by my chambers.” Before Gray could respond, the chief added, “You’re not gonna be a messenger boy anymore.”

CHAPTER 5

“Nothing? They found nothing?”

Special Agent Emma Milstein asked. Her partner, Scott Cartwright, stood in front of Milstein’s desk in the FBI field office, staring into an open file. Cartwright wore his usual navy suit, white shirt, plain tie clamped around his thick neck.

Cartwright shook his head. “A guy with a knife strolls into the Supreme Court, attacks a justice, and not one camera catches him, no one knows how he got in or out, nothing?”

“Nada,” Cartwright said.

“What about the kid? What’s his name again?” Cartwright flipped a page in the file.

“Hernandez. Grayson Hernandez. The Supreme Court’s squad interviewed him. Been on the job there for about a month, well liked. They’re confident it was just wrong place, wrong time.”

“Criminal record?”

“No, he’s a lawyer, actually.”

“A lawyer? I thought he was a messenger?”

“Yeah, works in the marshal’s office. Times are tough in the law business, I guess,” Cartwright said.

Cartwright walked over and put the open file in front of Milstein. “We don’t think he was involved in the attack. He got into some trouble as a kid— joyriding in a stolen car with some friends. But that’s like jaywalking in Hamilton Heights.”

“He grew up in Hamilton Heights? Don’t they call that area ‘Afghanistan’?” Milstein looked down at the file, studying the photo of Grayson Hernandez. He was a good-looking kid. Late-twenties. Striking blue eyes, unusual for a Hispanic. He had a scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his ear. Jagged, no plastic surgery. “Yeah, he’s a regular local boy makes good,” Cartwright said, heavy on the sarcasm.
“Any criminal associates?”

“He was childhood friends with a real charmer, Arturo Alvarez, who’s just out of prison and already at war with a rival sect. But it appears that Hernandez left the Heights and never looked back. The report says no contact with Alvarez in years.”

Milstein read through the rest of the file. “Does the press know he was there when the chief was attacked? I don’t need reporters sniffing around. If they find out there’s a connection to Dupont Underground they’ll—”

“They don’t know anything,” Cartwright interrupted. “The court released a statement about the mugging, but no details. They’re pretty tight-lipped up there.”

“What’s the Supreme Court’s police chief saying?”

“Aaron Dowell? He’s saying we should mind our own fucking business. They’re in charge of protecting the chief.”

“Yeah, they’re doing a great job.” Cartwright said nothing. “When can we talk to the chief justice?” Milstein asked. “They’re still stonewalling. I don’t think they’re taking the connection to Dupont seriously.”

“You told them we think it’s the same perp?”

“Of course I did. I’m working on it, Em.”

“Work harder.” Milstein let out a loud, frustrated breath.

“You want me to get you a snack or something?” Cartwright said. “When my kids get a little cranky, I bring them some Goldfish crackers and it—”

“Any luck on getting the wires?” Milstein said, ignoring him. Cartwright made a sound of disbelief. “Neal says you’re crazy if you think you’ll get a bug anywhere near that building.” As usual, Neal Wyatt, the assistant director in charge of the field office, was being too cautious, playing politics.

“Cowards.”

“You need to tread lightly. This is the Supreme Court.”

“The Franklin Theater fire was on July fifth. The Dupont Underground murders on August fifth. Now the attack on the chief October fifth. And we now know it’s the same perp. What’s it gonna take to get the Supreme Court’s squad to take this seriously?”

Cartwright shook his head. “Hopefully not another victim on November fifth.”

Click here to read my review of The Advocate’s Daughter, also by Anthony Franze.

Washington, D.C. is a city populated by people keeping secrets. Sean Serrat, a Supreme Court lawyer, is no exception. He harbors a secret from his childhood that, if revealed, could derail the successful professional and family life he has carefully constructed. He is among the most respected lawyers in the country and there is speculation that the President could soon nominate him to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

But a bump and whisper from a stranger on the metro foreshadow the darkness just ahead. Sean’s oldest child, Abby, a talented law student, tries to reach Sean by telephone just before she goes missing. In short order, Abby’s lifeless body is discovered in the Supreme Court library, her boyfriend, Malik Montgomery, a law clerk at the high court, is arrested, and Sean receives a perplexing visit from Montgomery’s defense counsel. A media frenzy sparks allegations that Montgomery’s arrest was racially motivated and the result of a convenient rush to judgment by Justice Department prosecutors.

Heloise grew up as Helen Lewis, the product of her mother’s unfortunate devotion to her father, Hector, an abusive adulterer who never divorced his wife. Hector told Helen that she had a “nothing face” and refused to support her as she pursued her education. From his viciousness, and her mother’s refusal to protect her daughter, Helen learned to survive. Now Heloise leads a quiet, unobtrusive life with her eleven-year-old son, Scott, in an upper middle class neighborhood. When anyone inquires, she states that she is a lobbyist, although she is actually the proprietor of an escort service. Heloise has devised an elaborate business model and record-keeping system to ensure that only she and her assistant, Audrey, know the full details about how the service operates. Even her attorney and accountant are not fully apprised. Neither is Tom, the vice cop who has looked the other way and protected her for many years, even while professing his love for her and Scott, for whom he would love to be a father. But Heloise has never said “yes” to Tom’s marriage proposals.

Instead, she pays regular visits to Val, a condemned murderer who is Scott’s biological father. Of course, neither Val nor Scott have any knowledge of each other. Scott believes his father died in an accident before he was born. And when Heloise learned she was pregnant, she managed to escape Val’s clutches for a few months, during which he was tried and convicted. But Heloise knows she can never fully break away from her former pimp and so to protect her son, she visits Val and continues sending him a portion of her income every month. After all, she learned much from him.

Catherine O’Brien and her partner, Louise, are homicide detectives with the St. Paul, Minnesota police department. As the story begins, Nathan Stanley has been found murdered on the front porch of his opulent home. He just happens to one of the chief of police’s friends, so Catherine and Louise are directed to solve the crime and make an arrest within the next two days. That means that they will undoubtedly be working around-the-clock, placing additional strain upon Catherine’s already-rocky marriage to Gavin, a contractor. Catherine and Gavin’s love for each other is not in question, but Gavin would like to spend time with his workaholic wife every once in a while.

Jude Parrish is a haunted man. The demon that tortures him is sometimes just below the surface, but omnipresent nonetheless. An innocent woman and child died at the conclusion of a hostage stand-off. Convinced that he could and should have ensured a different outcome to that crisis, Jude left the Lake George, New York, Police Department and became a best-selling crime writer. In his first book, he detailed his own shortcomings and revealed his deepest fears to his readers.

On a cold morning, Jude witnesses a murder just outside the gym where he works out daily and is suddenly the key witness. The murderer held an iPhone up to his victim, demanding, “Scream for me,” before executing him at point-blank range. His death is the latest in what appears to be a series of killings carried out in the same manner: the victim is hunted and tortured before his screams are recorded just before his life ends. Allegedly, the prime suspect, Hector “the Black Dragon” Lennox, died a few years earlier. The man identified by Jude, arrested, and charged with the crime bears different fingerprints, but DNA cannot be altered. Will the judge be willing to order the defendant to undergo DNA testing to establish his identity and connection to the prior murders? Will Jude be deemed a reliable witness, in light of his law enforcement history and public confession of his insecurities, self-doubts, and self-recrimination?

Blair Van Howe and his partner, Danny Moran, were celebrating the biggest victory of their legal careers when both of their lives were forever changed. Danny had enjoyed a three-month period during which he managed to stay sober, but the evening’s celebratory mood and flowing champagne proved to be his downfall. Blair navigated Danny’s new Porsche 911 at a reckless speed with Danny passed out in the passenger seat, narrowly avoiding a collision with an ongoing vehicle. The driver of the other car swerved, sending the vehicle straight into a tree.

Blair called 911 and unsuccessfully attempted to extricate the injured driver. In the process, the driver’s young daughter saw him and begged him to help her father. Panicked because he was about to announce his run for Congress, Blair made a choice that would determine the course of his life, as well as Danny’s: He dragged Danny into the driver’s seat and then left the scene.

First on the scene, Detective Victor Slazak is troubled by loose ends and determined to uncover the truth. But when Danny confesses and strikes a plea deal, determined to do the right thing and make amends, his bosses order him not to do any further work on the case. His colleagues are ordered not to provide him any additional information. And when he persists, credible threats force him to take the early retirement offered by the Chicago Police Department and flee to Las Vegas.

Dick Moonlight hasn’t had much business as a private investigator lately, so he’s been devoting his attention to his bar, Moonlight’s. That’s where he meets Peter Czech, a paraplegic who hires Moonlight to find his biological father. Czech, a nuclear engineer of Russian descent, claims that he was adopted at birth and his biological mother is dead.

But before he can get started on the case, Moonlight is dead, worked over by three thugs wearing President Obama masks, disguising their voices with synthesizers, in a downtown Albany alley. All that Moonlight can understand is that they want a “zippy box” and for Moonlight to stay away from Czech. Moonlight discovers that the stories about leaving your body and floating over the scene of your death are true: As he hovers between life and death in the hospital, he sees his girlfriend, Lola, at his bedside. But she is not alone. She is with a man Moonlight has never seen before and they appear to be much more than friends.